Lakshmi Korku and Lakshmi Katia did not return home on their own that evening. Their fathers brought back their badly dismembered bodies. Like hundreds of other tribals in Kesala area of Hoshangabad district, the two friends had gone to the Central Proof Establishment (CPR) range in search of their livelihood - scrap metal from exploded bombs - and discovered death, instantaneous and ghastly.

Katia, 20, was married only a few months ago. "His wife has come to our house for the first time, as a widow," said the bereaved father, Kinjulal, 55. The widow, Phoolkali, 16, was numb with sorrow. But the crowd of mourners at their home in Saheli village seemed almost unaffected. "Death in the range is so common in this area," said a relative.

Korku, 22, has left behind him a widow and a two-year-old daughter. "It is the greed for easy money that killed him," wailed his grandfather.

Some 20 km away from Saheli village, in Itarsi's government hospital lies Bikku Gond of Suia, swathed in bandages. Last fortnight, a shell hit him as he entered the forest near the range "in search of bamboos".

Even if he gets well, he faces prosecution for entering the prohibited area.

Things would have been different had the Madhya Pradesh Government implemented even half the recommendations made by Hoshangabad division commissioner H.R. Obhrai in the wake of a public interest writ in the Supreme Court almost four years ago. But the Government has so far not implemented vital recommendations made by the inquiry, despite a Supreme Court directive to the Government to take measures designed to wean the tribals from their lemming-like way of life.

Victim Jham Singh: Unsafe

The skull and cross-bones signs that greet a visitor to the CPE, have become symbolic of the 'death range'. Ever since the Rs 2.54-crore range was established 15 years ago, poor villagers, most of them tribals from surrounding villages, have been getting killed while picking scrap - their only means of livelihood.

While official figures put the death toll at a little over 100 during this period, unofficial sources say many more have perished. Hundreds of others, including children, have been maimed in the pursuit of this macabre business. Kesala police station records show that during the first three months of this year, six deaths have already taken place - a death every fortnight.

The tribals' troubles began in 1972 when the CPE established an ammunition testing range over 10,500 hectares of hilly and thickly-forested terrain near Itarsi to test bombs and shells produced in ordnance factories as well as imported weapons and ammunition. In the process, 23 villages, mostly tribal, were uprooted and got a pittance as compensation. "I was paid at the rate of Rs 100 per acre for my 70 acres of land," said Ramkishan Yadav, who got only five acres of land for his 70 acres and now lives in Chhindapani village.

But he was fortunate. Of the 1,085 families dispossessed from their lands, only 652 were given alternative land, most of it infertile rocky plots of five acres each. The rest have settled in other villages surrounding the range. In the wake of press reports on the 'death range', Obhrai sent a detailed report to the state Revenue Department on February 2, 1983, recommending rehabilitation of the 433 other families.

The file is gathering dust in the state secretariat since then. And those who did get land have not got the transfer deeds even after 15 years, because they couldn't pay the premium for the land. The villagers' lives have become cruelly intertwined with the range. Jham Singh, 25, of Chhindapani who lost a leg, is now a shepherd, often taking the goats for grazing in the very range that maimed him.

Says the 70-page 'confidential' report of the Hoshangabad commissioner: "The range seems to have affected the socio-economic structure in the area and vested interests have developed at various levels. The local inhabitants, petty traders, businessmen of Itarsi, politicians, some delinquent policemen and sometimes even army personnel join hands in the racket to derive benefits for themselves."

A maimed youth

Not long ago, a jawan of the defence security corps died in the range while collecting scrap. "The scrap is often bought by the army jawans," said Preetam Singh, detained last fortnight by the police in connection with a theft.

With the entry of big sharks, who profit by purchasing scrap at throw-away prices, the operation has become quite organised, the scrap finding its way to the metal markets of Indore, Bombay, Moradabad, Aligarh and Bhandara. Because of the stiff competition, the tribals are forced to enter the unguarded range even when firing is on in full swing.

Expert pickers hide near the target and run to put a mark of ownership, a piece of cloth, on the scrap before another bomb strikes. The report says that some of the scrap-gatherers have developed "expertise" in exploding projectiles which remain unexploded either on the surface or underground. They have developed a tool kit for the purpose. "Indirectly, they provide service to the range," says the report.

In his inquiry report, which the Government has conveniently forgotten, commissioner Obhrai had made several recommendations which, if implemented, can solve the problem to a large extent. These suggest that:

scrap-collection be legalised and regularised under army supervision and a centralised agency created by the Government for buying scrap; an industrial unit using scrap as raw material as well as an industrial estate be established near the range itself, providing employment to some tribals;

alternative jobs like employment in the Forest Department, self-employment by giving of bullock-carts, biogas plants, training in fishing and sericulture be provided, and displaced persons given priority in jobs in the defence establishments coming up in the area;

displaced tribals be resettled, and the premium waived for those who have been allotted land, because of the area's rockiness, and land allotted to others;

the police network be strengthened, the penalty for trespassing on the range be raised from the existing Rs 10, the possession of scrap belonging to the Defence Ministry made an offence and brought under the NSA.

After the Hoshangabad commissioner's report which indicted the police for inaction "because of possible connivance between the dealers and the lower functionaries of the police who get a share from the spoils", some of these influential traders in human misery were caught. Last year an imported car, used for carrying the scrap, was seized by the police.

Bikku Gond in hospital: Rising toll

Ironically, tribals agitating for proper rehabilitation of those displaced by the range have received lathis and jail terms instead of a sympathetic ear from the Government. In February, a group of tribals, including women, was lathi-charged and sent to jail when they tried to gherao a Hoshangabad district official to protest delays in opening relief-works in their area.

The tribals have organised several 'long-marches' to Hoshangabad and Bhopal to voice their demands and received a number of promises which were never fulfilled. "The proof range and the Tawa irrigation project, instead of improving the lot of the tribals, have made them homeless and jobless, " said Rajnarain, an activist in Saheli village. Except erecting some biogas plants and providing loans for bullock-carts no other recommendation has been implemented so far.

At present, 90 per cent of the biogas plants have stopped functioning and the Government has received complaints of corruption in distribution of loans for bullock-carts. "I want to motivate them towards sericulture and fisheries," said present Commissioner Arun Gupta. If the relief measures are anything to go by, perhaps the tribals will prefer the range of death.

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